They don't have to be witty bits of perfection. But you know. Something vaguely interesting would be nice.

If they are @ replies that seem to be in dialogue with someone, I approve. I may even click over to see more than your last three tweets. But mostly, at that point, I think, "Wow, an actual conversation! This may be a person worth knowing, for they understand that we are not all book-buying machines on Twitter!" And I probably follow you back.

But.

If your last 3 tweets are pleas to buy your book, it's over before it has begun. You are abusing Twitter.

If you DM me to thank me for following you, and also, check out your book? It's over.

If you @ me to thank you for following you, and also, check out your book? It's over.

You can't thank someone and try to sell them something in the same interaction, and expect a fruitful relationship thereafter.

If you follow me, and I follow you back, and you act like I followed you randomly in your thanking? I know you aren't actually paying attention, and I unfollow again. Because you're just trying to use me.

You have absolutely no idea how to use Twitter, my friend. I want a hundred good tweets before you self-promo me. MINIMUM.

There is someone on my Twitter who once did "line of the day" from a short story of hers, coming out in an anthology. As a preview or promo or something. So twice a day, this bit of disjointed, contextless prose would pop up...

"If you follow me, and I follow you back, and you act like I followed you randomly in your thanking? I know you aren't actually paying attention, and I unfollow again. Because you're just trying to use me."

This particularly annoys me. It's a function, I think, of people using automatic tools to follow people and thank followers. I don't think people should *ever* use automatic tools for interacting with followers or potential followers.

Another big red warning, for me, is if someone has an almost identical number of followers and people they follow, and the number is large (several thousand). That's a sure sign of using some tool that unfollows people who don't follow you back. They might as well have a sign saying "I'm not interested in reading your tweets, I just want you to follow me".

Hmm, I wonder if some of the charities I support could benefit from the idea that you don't get to thank someone and try to sell them something in the same breath. I often get letters that are, "Thank you very much here is a donation envelope," and I get why they do it, but I have just given them $N, for not-inconsiderable values of N; if I could have given them $2N this month or this year, I already would have done it and saved us both on processing.

A lot of possibly scammy charity solicitation calls begin with "This is a thank you call for your donation." When I tell them that I never made a donation, they argue with me. In one case, I called the charity that it putatively was representing and found out that they have no phone campaigns, so at least in some cases, these are actual scammers trying to shake people down. Which makes me think it must be effective in the general population to solicit money by starting with a thank you. Pathetic.

I keep flirting with the idea of disconnecting some folks from my LinkedIn profile for similar reasons. In particular, the executive recruiter who thought nothing about sending me multiple requests for referrals and yet completely ignored my own application to a job he posted. *makes face*

Yeah. I actually deleted my Linked In account because that's just not how job networking happens in either of my professional worlds, and likely won't ever be (in the foreseeable future). I've really enjoyed not having that account.

Just about anything that interests you that isn't rude or self-aggrandizing is a good tweet in my book. Content that isn't simply retweets or quotes from other people or your own work, unless that's your actual thing--you are a feed of something like that (I only follow 2 of those, though, and they are exactly what they claim to be).

But it's the aggregate mass of your tweets that makes any one tweet good or bad. If you have stuff to say, I'll forgive occasional things that would annoy me in mass quantities--forgive and consider it part of your dialogue and call it good, even. Saladin Ahmed has a good stream, in my view, if you're looking for examples.